Accidentally on Purpose (OPEN.)

[zakarY]

3: 47 PM;

[/b] I’m late for the Three-thirty train.[/center]

He should really be use to this by now. Despite having micro-managed near every aspect of his lonely little life, sometimes a person simply couldn’t avoid missing a train or two. A meeting runs late, or, well, maybe he actually chooses to stay late at the office. To get work done at work, instead of dragging it home with him.

And then there’s that pesky little theory that he’d missed his train on purpose.. That he’s looking for some sort of human-on-human contact that can only be obtained somewhere other than the office, his home, or the subway. Because, let’s face it, no one ever talks on the subway. No stranger ever pays someone a compliment which may be readily be given within say, a café. No one’s going to stop you if you drop your wallet like someone might in a dive-bar.

After all, almost the entirety of his life was filled with one work-related thing or another. Stopping in for coffee certainly wouldn’t be the death of him.

So, with coffee in hand, fully decked out with all those fancy ass bells and whistles; whipped cream, chocolate flakes, you know, all that stuff a person never does to their coffee at home, and a news paper tucked underarm Zakary waits. In line. Oh, this was great for his social life.

Quietly Zakary overturns that newspaper so he may survey his own handiwork. Despite being cripplingly aware of the downfall of the printed word, Mister Doucette can’t help but savor the sight of his named printed upon that flimsy, thrice recycled sheet of paper. Even if only a small handful of people did read what he had to say. It was both rewarding, and depressing.

4: 03 PM;

[/b] I’m now about seven dollars poorer. Considering adopting a tip jar of my own.[/center]

At least the coffee is decent.[/size][/blockquote]

[obscure]

The car tires screech as a beat up Cadillac comes to an abrupt stop at the busy intersection; those nearest to the vehicle can overhear the voices from within. The passenger door violently swings open, and a pair of slender legs appear, high heels stomping loudly on the cement. In mid-conversation, she pushes herself out of the vehicle, yelling in Spanish: -tas jodido en la cabeza, hijo de puta!

Innocent bystanders look over their shoulders and newspapers, some women cover their mouths with their hands whilst others stifle their laughter and lean closer to their walking companion. The yelling continues as the leggy brunette leans forward, hands pressed against the rooftop and side of the open door. A male voice is yelling back, but the nature of the argument is indiscernible. Some bystanders have come to a complete stop to watch the exchange, wide-eyed. Gazes creep up the exposed legs, where a short dress hugs an hour glass body; some scowl whilst others (particularly men) raise their eyebrows.

Si, asi es! The brunette wiggles her pinky finger, glaring at the driver, whose anonymity remains intact due to the heavily shaded windows. And just like that, in midsentence, the car speeds off, and the woman jumps out of the way just in time to avoid being squashed by the door. The tires screech once more, and this time as it rounds the corner, the open door slams shut, and she remains standing in the street. Lifting her hand ahead of her, she gives the driver a middle-finger.

Suddenly it dawns on her that she’s being observed by many. Clearing her throat, she drops her arm and tugs down on the tight dress that has since crept up her slender thighs. Meeting a few stares evenly, she steps onto the pavement and stomps off—hoping to catch the next train and make it home before dark. The clicking of her high heels comes to a stop when her gaze falls upon an average Joe.

He has what she wants.

Excuse me? Eh, sorry? Candelaria motions dramatically towards the newspaper in his possession, Can I eh, look, eh please?

Her heavy Argentine accent smothers the English words that she manages to extract from the limited list of vocabulary she has impressively retained since her schoolgirl days. Raising her eyebrows expectantly, her gaze flickers from him to the newspaper—such is the demanding nature of Latin women. She doesn’t look away from him, staring him down from her slightly elevated height (due to her heels); if she looks away she’ll start feeling the shame.

Is this how the prostitutes feel when they walk the streets during the day?
She would have to inquire and make sure to write about it.

[zakarY]

4: 17 PM; Waiting for the train.

And, so, Zak stood there, with coffee lifted toward his mouth and his neck craned downwards and to the paper he held in hand, folded over once more than had been originally done for portability’s sake. He looks like some sort of awkward ostrich with his head in the ground. Only he was simply some sort of socially awkward office worker, and not a grumpy flightless bird.

At least ostriches could run.

Him? He had no where to go. At least not until the train got there. This young man hadn’t bothered to learn how to drive. It wasn’t that he was spoiled, and had some chauffer cart him from one side of Memphis to the other, and it’s not that Memphis has an astounding public transit system on which he could rely. It’s the simple fact that even as a young lad Zakary Michael Doucette was a social outcast. He was a geek, he is a geek, he will forever be a spastic, tech-obsessed, paper-writing geek.

The upside was that he was never cursed with glasses.

Which is an awesome upside when you can’t talk to anyone. Not just girls, anyone. Oh, it wasn’t that Zakary hadn’t tried to make friends, at least not at first, it’s just that he was always a slight… peculiar, to be kind about it.

Luckily, that was all in the past, and despite his quirks, he’d landed himself a solid, and decent job! One which took up the majority of his life, but it’s not as though he had anywhere to go, or anyone to be with. In the end, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and Zakary, more often than not, enjoyed his work, even if it occasionally seemed like, well, work. School work, to be more specific, the kind that a kid thinks they’ll be done with by the time they’re adults.

Though his self-enduced purgatory was soon broken by a woman who’s native tongue was obviously not English. Zak can’t help but blink up at her. It’s one of those looks a person gives when they’re uncertain as to whether or not they were the ones being addressed. Luckily she spoke again, and Zak understood. At least somewhat. Though to be fair it was between his coffee, and the newspaper.

The newspaper, Zak decides, though he seems hesitant to hand it over. He’d paid for it, after all. “Why?” he asks of her, those blue eyes settled upon her pretty face. It may be cruel to ask someone who seemed to stumble over their words such a question, but Zak didn’t so much care.

Still, he pulls the paper so the headlines are face up, and all is right again.

[obscure]

Candelaria blinks at him in silence for a few seconds as though the question itself is tricky to understand; it isn’t. Furrowing her brow, she glances down at it briefly before lifting her gaze to meet his. Why did she want it? Well, she knew why but she wasn’t going to be telling him why, it was none of his fucking business. Surely he didn’t expect her to explain to him why she wanted to briefly glance through it, was he? Perhaps he had misunderstood her intentions? Hell, if he bothered to use his eyes of his he would see she was not going to run off with his newspaper in these heels. Clearing her throat, still offering no reply to his query, she sets her weight on one leg and stretches the other.

Eh listen, I just want to look for something in the newspaper... she tilts her head, waist-long hair cascading around her shoulders as her eyebrow raises expectantly. It’s not like she is asking for him to give it to her, she merely wants to see a page. No one has taught Candelaria that what she is doing is rude, after all, any Latin man addressed in the same fashion would have complied long-ago. These Americans, they were so concerned about—ah who cared, she didn’t even know how to finish the thought.

The train would be coming soon. By the time she could check what her destination would be and buy the damn ticket to get there, the train will have come and gone if he didn’t hurry. Glancing over her shoulder, Candelaria’s gaze falls on another possible subject, though as soon as she sees the headlines she realizes it’s a different paper and not of interest. Inhaling deeply, the brunette raises a hand to her hair and combs it back, giving him a blank look before glancing back at the paper.

Licking her lower lip, she looks away from him, clearly looking for another source that may be of further help. Tucked between the crest of her breast and the dress is a five dollar bill, it is all she has until she reaches her destination. Candelaria sighs, quite certain that she is wasting her time. Normally she likes stubborn men who take an interest, but this one lacks the presence she searches and thus the inquisitiveness, albeit being potentially benign, is not welcome.

Please, the train will be here soon, I have no time...

Latin women don’t like to plead, for they usually are quite capable of bringing a man to his knees with looks alone. Surely she doesn’t not look her best, she has barely made it out with her life this time around. The platform is beginning to get crowded, which means it’ll take her longer to reach the ticket dispenser. Candelaria shifts her weight once more, setting one hand on her hip.

[zakarY]

Her silence was met with Zakary’s own. Those blue eyes of his simply fixed upon this young Latin woman. Zakary wouldn’t be the one to break the silence.

Women don’t intimidate him. Perhaps no one does, well, almost no one. Zak simply doesn’t know well enough to know the difference between polite and how he’s behaving in this moment. Zakary was a smart young man who’d been coddled from a young age, sheltered, even, and while he now had a perfectly normal job with a perfectly normal life, he wasn’t exactly use to interacting person-on-person.

Weird boys like him thrive online. Between tweeting, and face book updates he seems almost normal to those people looking upon his life from afar. He’s witty and smart, and almost everything a “normal” person should be.

Here, and now, though, with this girl demanding of him his newspaper he was silent, and, well, awkward. He’d give in, of course he would hand over his paper, albeit begrudgingly, and simply hope that she’d give it back when she was done with it. Waiters made more money than he did after all, and despite not needing that particular newspaper he wasn’t exactly ready to give it up to this Latin diva.

Once more Zakary folds the newspaper into quarters and offers it up with an eccentric sort of flap to the pages. “Here.” he demands her to take the damned thing, sounding almost stubborn and all too begrudging in that moment. Perhaps some manners would be appreciated in this moment, a smile of sorts, or even kinder, more conversational words. Maybe those words would have come from anyone else within that train station, though this girl chose poorly.

Either way his blatant rudeness wasn’t his own problem. Quietly he shifts from the balls of his feet toward his heels, “You’re on the four thirty train?” he asks of her, a brief moment of normalcy shining through. “South?” he questions thereafter. That’s where he was heading, after all.

Would the fates force him to be crushed into the confines of one of those over-heated compartments with this unorthodox woman?

[obscure]

I think I am... she replies to him distractedly, eyes quickly scanning the pages as she flips through them brutally. Her foot is tapping the ground noisily as she searches for the words that will appease her anxiety.

Shit... she mumbles, the rest of the curse words dying upon her tongue as her eyes catch sight of the thing she is looking for. A triumphant smile graces her features as she scrambles for her purse, managing to pull out a pen. Biting on the cap, she scribbles an address onto the inside of her forearm, bruised wrists matching the black ink on the paper. Clicking the pen shut, she tears the cap from between her teeth and haphazardly folds the paper before handing it back to him.

Gracias! she exclaims, leaning forward to plant a kiss on his cheek before disappearing into the dense crowd towards the ticket booth. The machines are out of order and the line is long which causes her to nearly miss the wretched train. Her heels click noisily against the cement as she hurries towards the closing doors, reaching them just in time. The momentum caused by her running causes her to crash into the crowd ungracefully. Excusing herself, she straightens her posture and glances around to meet the judgemental gazes she’s victim to.

[Kenneth]

It was a sad life he lived if leaving forty-five minutes early was the only thing that could bring him happiness. Sure, Kenneth wasn’t completely unhappy, but not was he ever ecstatic. For some reason, the amount of deaths the night before had not been as many as usual. The amount of requests for obituaries was lessened. Kenneth finished his work early, and got up to date on those things. Perhaps that was why he was happy, too. He was up to date. The next morning he could start fresh. Tonight, he’d be able to sleep without consistently worrying about the things he’d left behind.

He refused to take work home with him. That would make his life far sadder than it already was.

So he was now ambling along the street toward the train station, quietly eating an apple as he enjoyed the sunlight. Usually when he left work the sun was dwindling and night soon set in. This afternoon, however, he actually got some rays—the sun had not yet dipped behind the buildings. His skin was so pasty. He really needed to get out into the sun some more.

Over one shoulder was slung his back-pack which contained the remains of his lunch, his latest, dog-eared book, and a few other odds and ends which he required at work. He had a laptop at home, but he tried not to bring it with him. That would tempt him far too much to bring his work home. And what was the point, when he had a perfectly good computer waiting for him?

He probably shouldn’t have run for the train. But if he missed this one, he didn’t know how long he’d have to wait for the next one. And if he had to wait, finishing work early would have been for nothing. So he ran for the four-thirty train, bypassing the ticket box. The train was his only mode of transportation much of the time, so every Monday he bought himself a weekly ticket. It was cheaper, in the end, and he saved time by not having to line up for a ticket every morning and afternoon.

He cockily sliced his way down through the line; this was something he was obviously practiced at.

There was a group of cackling students; they’d finished school over an hour ago, but they were just making their way home now. Kenneth ought to have been more caring for their safety, but really, their parents ought to have picked them up if they were so worried. But he was not going to miss this train, he refused.

It was then that he caught sight of a familiar face—a guy he’d seen around the office. They didn’t speak often, as this guy was of a higher echelon than Kenneth. Did he even work on the same level? No, this guy was one of the lucky ones. One of the ones whose names were printed every so often. Still, Kenneth didn’t hold grudges against people who were better than he was. He shoved his way in beside the guy, Jack his name was. Maybe. No! He looked again... no, his name was Zak. Together, they effectively blocked the student’s progress. They were lagging, anyhow, due to the size of their group. They fell back, having lost a member.

Both Kenneth and Zac succeeded in finding a place on the packed train, Kenneth reaching for one of the handles overhead. His grasp was lost, however, before he’d even gained it. Through the doors, which were slowly sliding shut, there shot a woman. She catapulted herself into their midst, even though the room was lacking.

Kenneth cleared his throat, shook his head, and then turned to his colleague with a resentful smile;

“People these days, eh? So rude.”

[zakarY]

Zakary didn’t hate people, per se. He had no reason to, after all.

Except for times like these when he was tossed from his comfort zone - torn from what could be considered his ritual, and forced into this pool of uncertainty. This was all his fault, though. It was his fault he’d been late for the train, and it was even his fault that he’d come into contact with that strange and seemingly eccentric Latin woman, though maybe that wasn’t directly his fault.

Still, it was all a string of events that brought him to pushing through a group of rowdy miscreants and boarding the Four-thirty express to the opposite side of town. Though it seemed he wouldn’t be alone. Sure, that woman had abandoned him with a violating sort of kiss on the cheek before bouncing off in a flurry of clicking high heels, sun kissed skin, and next to naked thighs, but there was someone else in question. Perhaps he hadn’t been paying enough attention, and hadn’t noticed, though maybe this man had just shown up.

Either way, Zakary recognized the male. From work [where else?], but what was his name again? Obviously his cubicle wasn’t exactly perpendicular to Zakary’s own, else he’d probably know his name. No, this blonde man almost definitely worked below him. His mind works for the man’s name, what he did at the newspaper, some sort of hint toward his identity. All while his thumb poked and prodded against the worn screen of his iPhone, searching the news paper’s website for another hint.

Nothing.

For a moment Zakary tears his eyes away from the brightly lit screen to turn his attention towards this being. Perhaps the office should provide some sort of name tags. Not that Zak would wear his own. And despite being unable to muster up a name, or job title for the young man, he speaks, “You’re telling me,” Zak states above those rowdy children crushing into that box car, and violating Zak’s every sense, “This Hispanic-looking woman…” he begins his tale, tossing a glance over-the-shoulder to survey his immediate area for that girl. She’d said she’d be on this train, though perhaps not within this car. Maybe she hadn’t gotten a ticket in time, or maybe he just hadn’t spotted her. Whatever the case Zakary feels it safe to speak freely, “She comes up to me and demands my paper, though she owned me. I don’t know where kids get off these days,”

These days. Like Zakary is oh so very ancient himself.

So maybe he’s not the oldest man aboard this train, it didn’t seem to matter, he wasn’t the one misbehaving, after all.

[/blockquote]

[Kenneth]

Kenneth snorts his agreement.

Odd, that these two relatively young men were complaining about the youth of today. They themselves weren’t too far from it. But they were at least far enough away to be out of the generation that was so hounded by the media. Generation Y, they said, were lazy and had no work ethic. And here they were, Kenneth and Zak, agreeing with them. Hell, they were the media. They were the influencers. Perhaps they, in turn, were being influenced.

Well, Zak was one of the influencers. Kenneth had no way of influencing anyone, not with obituaries. No, that was beyond the question.

Whatever the case, Kenneth was forced to look around the interior of the train, trying to find this woman Zak had been talking about, perhaps, or simply to just get his bearings. It didn’t matter that they’d left a group of kids out on the landing, there were still plenty more within as well. They were laughing and shouting at each other, and one of them was even playing music out loud on their phone. No respect whatsoever. What, did they think everyone enjoyed the same music they did? Doubtful.

The train lurched into movement and Kenneth was pushed uncomfortably against a rather fat man behind him. But he was used to it. This was the kind of thing he was subject to every afternoon, five days a week. The train would slowly empty at each station they reached. It was always a relief.

The air around them was getting warmer, too, and smelt of sweat and...people. This Kenneth was used to as well. But that didn’t mean he had to like it, or was immune to it. He really couldn’t wait to get off the train.

But they were stuck, for the moment, and it would just be plain awkward if the two of them just stood there, so close together, and did not converse.

“So... you didn’t give her your paper?” Kenneth asked, at least a little interested to hear the end of Zak’s story, even if it didn’t appear to be the most interesting story. Kenneth could see the paper clearly within Zak’s possession, so whoever the woman was she must not have taken the thing. Again, Kenneth found himself glancing around at the passengers, trying to find said Hispanic woman, even going so far as to search for a young, almost teenage-looking Hispanic woman. Zak had, in a round-a-bout way, called her a ‘kid’.

And there was a woman, whom Kenneth could see at the other end of the carriage, over the heads of the other milling passengers. She was Hispanic in origin, but that did not mean she was the woman in question. Still, hers was the face that Kenneth to the woman in Zak’s story.

[zakarY]

His coffee was cooled by this point - not to the point to where it could be considered disgusting, though more to the point where it could be considered more or less drinkable. Or so he thinks, and he seems almost eager to test this theory out, lifting the flimsy pressed paper cup to his lips for a tentative sort of sip.

Ah, yes, all was fine.

So with taste buds still in tact Zak reaches overhead to grasp upon one of those poles for balance as that train lurches to life and seems to speed off near immediately. One of the nice things about public transport is that it seemed to be quick, though with all stops considered it would probably be faster to simply walk. Public transport most definitely had more downsides than up, but still, he was here - after all, no one wanted to walk home after working a nine-to-five, even if they did work a desk job.

Work was work, after all.

“I briefly surrendered my newspaper,” Zakary confesses, flicking the paper outwards once more though Kenneth may not have noticed that he was still in possession of such. Well, if he hadn’t, he was aware now! Sure, it may have been rude of Zak to have not surrendered the paper, especially considering that he was relatively well-off financially. (Perhaps because he existed void of any sort of companion.)

But call Zak stubborn, he supposes, as a child he wasn’t much for sharing, and not a lot had changed as he’d grown up.

“I simply don’t see why I should be responsible for other’s needs,” Oh, how republican of him.

An eye pinches shut then, and his hand drops from the overhead bar in some attempts to avoid any further contact with strangers. It was then he had an epiphany of sorts - he could very well be coming off as rude, and he even vocally recognizes such, “I must sound like an ass,” he confesses, “I apologize if I offend you,” an apology from Mister Doucette, nonetheless! Truly this was a day of emotional and social growth!

“My ma always said I come off as an ass,” he laughs then - short to say the least of that chuckle, though a laugh nonetheless.